Background
Simulating real-world battery internal failures in a battery system is crucial to test and examine the performance of the designed protective mechanisms that enhance battery safety. The invention is created to be incorporated into a battery system to simulate battery internal failures. Other similar existing tools such as nail penetration cannot be practically incorporated into a battery system—phase-change-material (PCM) and shape-memory-alloy (SMA) approaches have complex experimental preparation, and dendrite-growth (DG) approach has poor controllability.
Technology description
The invention uses in-situ temperature measurements and a mini-heater cartridge inserted into an 18650 cell. The heater can be controlled by a temperature controller to prescribe a failure recipe. External temperature measurements are used to determine the battery thermophysical and kinetic properties. The system can also be used to fail the cell by initiating thermal runaway.
This technology can be incorporated into any commercial battery package system to characterize the cell and simulate real-world battery internal failure in battery system. It is simple and cheap to produce, compared to other existing techniques, and can be implemented in field failure simulations. A bench-scale prototype has been demonstrated.
